'Anti-Obamacare' Newcomer Breaks Fundraising Records

A political newcomer campaigning as the "anti-Obamacare" candidate in Nebraska has raised nearly $750,000 in eight weeks in the first quarter of his candidacy, breaking his state's fundraising records.

Republican Ben Sasse, who is running for the Senate seat left open by Sen. Mike Johanns' retirement, isn't only following party lines, but says he's studied the entire 2,300-page bill, Breitbart News reports.

"I am the anti-Obamacare candidate," said Sasse. "I have actually spent years studying it and I understand just how devastating this will be to American businesses, families and taxpayers."

His fundraising feat surpasses Nebraska's previous record of $526,000 from individual donors that was collected by Johanns while he was serving as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

In comparison, Shane Osborn, a former state treasurer who has been campaigning for the Senate seat for six months, raised only $234,000 in his first quarter, the FEC records show.

This is Sasse's first race for public office, but he is not a newcomer to political life. The 41-year-old served as chief of staff from 2003 to 2005 for the federal Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, was assistant secretary of Health and Human Services from 2007 to 2009, and has spent much of that time working on health care issues.

He also has been president of Midland University in his hometown of Fremont, Neb., since 2010.

Nebraska GOP Chairman Mark Fahleson drafted Sasse to run for Johanns' seat because of his health care expertise, saying that 2014 and 2016 "will be about Obamacare and the false promises and reckless entitlement spending that are set to destroy this country."

But even though Sesse is breaking fundraising records, he hasn't quite gotten support in the polls over his fellow Republican competitors for Johanns' seat, Roll Call reports.

According to a recent Gravis Marketing poll, Osborn took 41 percent of the nod from 1,842 registered voters, most of whom said they had never heard of Sasse, who came in third with just 5 percent support from those polled.